Center for American Progress Action FundCenter for American Progress Action Fundhttps://www.americanprogressaction.org
Progressive through ActionTue, 19 Feb 2019 20:54:33 +0000hourly1The Economic Betrayal in Trump’s False Promiseshttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2019/02/04/172969/economic-betrayal-trumps-false-promises/
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 19:30:29 +0000Jesse Lee and Daniella Zessouleshttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/default/news/2019/01/25/172969//The past two years have showcased not only President Trump’s rigging of the U.S. economy, but also the unfulfilled economic promises he made to working Americans.

]]>Routine dishonesty has been a defining characteristic of President Donald Trump’s campaign and tenure in the White House—and it should not be sugar-coated. At a staggering 8,158 false statements made over his first two years in office, Trump’s habit of lying can begin to seem mundane or even comical. But, for millions of American families living paycheck to paycheck, Trump’s unfulfilled economic promises are anything but trivial. Throughout his campaign, Trump pledged to quickly reverse sweeping economic trends that have left wages stagnant and large swaths of the country behind for decades, exploiting the understandable desire for systemic change in order to get elected. Once in office, however, he methodically executed an agenda to make those same problems worse.

Trump’s inability or unwillingness to assess the economy accurately and honestly has harmed the very people whose lives he promised to improve. A self-described advocate for “the forgotten men and women,” Trump’s economic priorities have instead heaped benefits on corporations and the wealthiest Americans, who were already reaping the vast majority of the economy’s rewards.

This was not a case of a presidential candidate with lofty aspirations meeting the reality of gridlock in Washington, particularly considering the advantage of having a Republican-controlled Congress. Trump’s core economic promises, which were the backbone of what he and others called “populism” or “economic nationalism” were—almost without fail—flat lies from the beginning.

Lie #1: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody”

Access to affordable health care is directly related to economic security, which, particularly given rising health care costs, may explain why it was a vital issue for voters in the 2018 midterm elections. Yet, despite promising “insurance for everybody,” Trump made it his first priority to pass legislation that would strip coverage from 20 million Americans and end protections for tens of millions more with pre-existing conditions. Trump has also called for work requirements—which disproportionately bar those who are working, ill, disabled, caregivers, or students from receiving health insurance—and cut tribal health care funding by hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite Trump’s campaign promise to lower drug prices, he has failed to deliver: Drug manufacturers continue to hike prices, and he backed Congress’ repeal of the individual mandate, which is estimated to increase the number of uninsured Americans by about 8 million by 2027.

Lie #2: “It’s going to cost me a fortune”

On the campaign trail in 2015, Trump claimed that his tax reforms would cost him a fortune. Once in office, however, Trump and congressional Republicans passed a tax bill, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), that gave a massive windfall to high-earners, including Trump himself, and wealthy real estate investors. The pass-through deduction loophole expanded benefits for companies—including the Trump Organization and Kushner Companies, to name a few—and a new carveout extended this break to real estate owners such as Trump.

Lie #3: “Every policy decision we make must pass a simple test: Does it create more jobs and better wages for Americans?”

In 2016, Trump outlined his economic plan, stating that every policy passed should “create more jobs and better wages for Americans.” Yet, the current economic reality paints a bleak picture for all but the wealthiest few. Wages have remained virtually stagnant for decades—increasing just $2.41 since the beginning of 2000—and have continued to follow this trend under Trump’s presidency. All the while, corporate profits have soared to unprecedented levels, with year-over-year increases of nearly 17 percent from this past quarter. The Trump administration also reversed an Obama-era rule updating overtime rules, resulting in $1.2 billion in lost wages per year. Furthermore, Trump has backed an assault on unions and left the minimum wage at a paltry $7.25, despite its purchasing power having sharply diminished in the 10 years since it was last raised.

Despite claims during his first press conference that he’d be the “greatest jobs producer that God ever created,” job growth under Trump has fallen in line with job growth of past administrations. The average number of jobs added per month has roughly mirrored that of the Obama administration. And despite the disproportionate effect that recessions have on working and low-income people, Trump has advocated for the very reckless policies that led to the 2008 crisis.

Despite promises to enhance the safety and stability of the financial system, since taking office, Trump and his appointed financial regulators have gutted postcrisis protections. From allowing big banks to load up on even more debt to eroding the Volcker Rule, the administration and Trump-appointed regulators have consistently advanced policies that serve the interests of Wall Street. An August report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee estimated that Trump’s tax scam would hand a $26 billion windfall to the U.S. banking sector by the end of the year, with nearly half of the windfall going to six of the biggest U.S. banks. After Obama appointee Richard Cordray stepped down as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Trump administration quickly appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director. Mulvaney, who had once called the very agency created to protect consumers in the financial sector a “sick, sad” joke, stripped powers from the fair-lending office, and publicly announced enforcement actions have fallen by 75 percent during his tenure. Although Trump once proclaimed his intention to break up the big banks in the interest of working Americans, the TCJA has directly—and generously—benefitted the wealthy and corporations by lowering the top individual income tax rate to 37 percent and slashing the statutory corporate tax rate.

Lie #5: “These [U.S.] companies aren’t going to be leaving any more”

On the campaign trail, Trump asserted that “these [U.S.] companies aren’t going to be leaving any more.” Yet, just this past November, General Motors Co. announced plans to close five plants in the United States and Canada, resulting in a 15 percent cut in its workforce, or 14,700 fewer jobs. This comes on the heels of hundreds of layoffs at Carrier and the Ford Motor Co. restructuring—far from the “great deal for workers” Trump once touted.

Trump made false promises in order to tap into many Americans’ genuine concerns and worries about income inequality and an economy that is tilted to benefit corporations, elites, and the wealthiest 1 percent.

Whether by paying for massive tax cuts for the rich with subsequent cuts in federal programming, or initiating a so-called trade war in which he uses thousands of American farmers as pawns to help corporations—Trump has rigged the U.S. economy for his and the wealthiest Americans’ gain. The past two years of Trump’s presidency have showcased not only his manipulation of the economy, but also the fraudulence of his economic promises to working Americans—the very promises that contributed to his electoral win.

Jesse Lee is a vice president for Communications at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Daniella Zessoules is a special assistant for Economic Policy at the Center.

]]>Trump’s False Promiseshttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/democracy/news/2019/02/04/173008/trumps-false-promises/
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 19:23:32 +0000https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/default/news/2019/01/28/173008//President Donald Trump ran on standing up for working people against special interests, but as president, he’s only worked to enrich himself and his donors. Now, his false promises are coming home to roost.

President Donald Trump’s habitual lying has become comical—even mundane—with more than 8,000 false statements in his first two years in office. But perhaps the most important lies were the ones Trump told to be elected, when he promised hardworking people that he would work for them rather than the wealthy donors and big corporate interests who have rigged the system to benefit themselves. Far from being a populist president, he has engaged in unprecedented wholesale corruption to enrich himself and his wealthy connections at the expense of everybody else. On issue after issue, no candidate has made more sweeping promises than Trump, and no president has so blatantly and intentionally betrayed them.

]]>According to new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, there are 150 members of the 116th Congress—all Republicans—who do not believe in the scientific consensus that human activity is making the Earth’s climate change. Notably, since the previous Congress, the number of climate deniers has decreased by 30 members, in part because 47 former deniers retired, resigned, or were defeated in their 2018 re-election contests. However, even while voters express their clear commitment to climate action, nearly 60 percent of Republican members—who make up 28 percent of the current Congress—still do not believe in climate change and the urgent threat that it poses.

That number does not line up with public opinion. A recent Monmouth University poll found that 78 percent of respondents believe that climate change is real and leading to severe weather impacts. This figure includes a majority—64 percent—of all Republicans surveyed, up 15 percent from 2015.

The map below shows whether each state’s representation in Congress denies accepted climate science. Click on each member’s name to see their statement on climate change. To view a full-size version of the interactive, click here.

According to CAP Action’s analysis of datafrom the Center for Responsive Politics, these 150 climate deniers have accepted a total of more than $68 million in direct contributions from the fossil fuel industry—a figure that includes all contributions above the Federal Election Commission’s reporting threshold of $200 from CEOs, employees, and political action committees (PACs) in the coal, oil, and gas sectors. This is an average of $455,731 in lifetime contributions accepted by each climate denier in the 116th Congress. In addition to these direct donations from PACs, CEOs, and employees, fossil fuel interests often pursue other methods to influence elected officials and election results. For example, in the 2018 midterms, a campaign to defeat a carbon tax in Washington state vastly outspent its opponents after raising $31.5 million—nearly all of it from out-of-state oil companies—for advertising and public messaging. Coal magnate Bob Murray’s spending during the 2016 elections provides yet another example of this underhanded influence; Murray gave President Donald Trump and affiliated groups millions of dollars, expecting—and receiving—policy favors in return, such as their help bailing out the failing coal industry.

It is critical to note that the fossil fuel industry contributions noted in this analysis merely represent direct, publicly disclosed contributions to candidates. The fossil fuel industry spends untold millions more lobbying members of Congress—only some of which is reported. This contributes to shadowy corporate coalitions and funds dark money groups that help to elect candidates without disclosing the identity of their contributors.

As climate change accelerates and its impacts diversify, so too have the efforts of the fossil fuel industry—one of the main contributors to climate change—to spread misinformation, through new and diverse messages. In light of this, CAP Action considered a number of different stances in its definition of “climate denier”:

Believing that climate change is not real or is a hoax

Believing that the climate has always been changing and continues to do so, and saying that the Earth is just in a standard cycle of warming, despite more evidence of faster change than ever before

Thinking that the science around climate change is not settled, or claiming that since they are not scientists themselves, they cannot know for certain

Believing that humans are contributing to a changing climate but are not the main contributors—again, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary

To determine which members of Congress still deny climate science, CAP Action reviewed public statements by all current members of Congress regarding climate change. For those whose statements were unclear or unavailable, CAP Action reached out to their offices requesting clarification and comment—which the map notes where relevant.

It’s notable that the number of climate deniers in Congress is decreasing; this underscores the growing urgency with which the American public views the threat of climate change. Yet the number is still high enough to hamstring congressional efforts to tackle climate change through legislation in the 116th Congress—especially with the example of climate denier-in-chief, President Trump. These deniers must be held accountable and scrutinized for their unscientific beliefs, and the fossil fuel industry’s outsized influence at the congressional level must be investigated.

Sally Hardin is a research analyst for the Energy and Environment War Room at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Claire Moser is the director of the Energy and Environment War Room at the Action Fund.

The authors would like to thank Alex Tausanovitch, Kristina Costa, Steve Bonitatibus, Meghan Miller, and Mat Brady for their contributions to this analysis.

*Authors’ note: In addition to analyzing the climate change beliefs of each member of the 116th Congress, CAP Action also compared the climate denier makeup of this Congress with that of the 115th Congress. The authors used ThinkProgress’ 2017 analysis of climate deniers in the 115th Congress to help determine which former deniers had left and for what reasons. They found that, in total, 47 climate deniers from the 115th Congress are no longer serving: 16 of these deniers retired; five deniers resigned; 22 deniers were defeated, either in their own primaries or in general 2018 midterm elections; and four deniers moved on—to governorships, the judicial branch, or appointments in the Trump administration.

]]>Tracking the Rising Cost of Trump and McConnell’s Shutdownhttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2019/01/18/172905/tracking-rising-cost-trump-mcconnells-shutdown/
Fri, 18 Jan 2019 14:00:25 +0000Saharra Griffinhttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/default/news/2019/01/17/172905//By the White House's own estimate, President Trump and Sen. McConnell's shutdown is costing the U.S. economy $6.5 billion each week they refuse to fund the government.

]]>The U.S. economy is being sabotaged by President Donald Trump’s shutdown, which began on December 22—a result of his insistence on unnecessary border wall funding and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) unwillingness to bring a vote to the floor. By the White House’s own updated estimate, this partial government shutdown will likely reduce quarterly U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.13 percentage points every week it continues, due to direct effects on federal employees and contractors as well as other stalled government operations and spending. Since first-quarter GDP is projected to be roughly $5 trillion, President Trump’s shutdown, which began on December 22, 2018, will cost the U.S. economy $13 billion in lost output every two weeks it continues based on this impact estimate. Until this impasse concludes, hundreds of thousands of federal workers and contractors will miss out on paychecks, prompting economic uncertainty and limiting spending power in communities across the country.

Saharra Griffin is a special assistant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

]]>10 Ways State and Local Officials Can Build Worker Power in 2019https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/default/news/2018/12/12/172711/10-ways-state-local-officials-can-build-worker-power-2019/
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +0000Karla Walter and David Madlandhttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/default/news/2018/12/11/172711//Progressive state and local lawmakers should act to strengthen workers’ power in the economy and our democracy.

]]>Workers have a lot to look forward to in 2019. Progressive governors, mayors, and state and local lawmakers are gearing up to debate proposals that would raise standards for workers, including legislation to increase the minimum wage; expand overtime coverage; and protect all workers from sexual harassment, discrimination, wage theft, and abusive noncompete contracts. Yet improving minimum standards laws alone will not reverse decades of wage stagnation, especially for working and middle-class Americans. Policymakers must also work to restore the power of working people in our economy and our democracy—first and foremost by strengthening unions.

Unions help workers negotiate with CEOs on relatively even footing for decent pay, benefits, and workplace conditions. Unions also give workers a voice in our democracy, driving voter turnout and advancing progressive priorities. However, decades of conservative attacks and a changing economy have weakened unions’ ability to advocate for working people. Between one-fifth and one-third of the rise in wage inequality over recent decades can be traced to the decline of union membership.

Working people across the country—including workers in the Fight for $15 movement; public school educators; and Amazon warehouse workers—continue to fight for a voice on the job. While enacting federal reforms in 2019 is unlikely, state and local lawmakers have significant power to strengthen workers’ right to bargain and provide a roadmap for federal policy reforms.

This column lists 10 ways that state and local officials can rebuild the power of working people in the U.S. economy.

1. Support public sector workers’ right to bargain

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees that threatens the freedom of millions of government workers to form strong unions. To combat this attack on workers’ rights, policymakers should ensure that all state and local public sector workers are awarded bargaining rights. Moreover, they should enact laws to educate new public employees about the benefits of union membership; allow unions to communicate with workers through modern and convenient means; modernize union dues collection; strengthen workers’ power at the bargaining table; and recognize the ability of unions to provide needed goods to workers, such as workforce training. Governors and mayors should also provide guidance to ensure that dues deduction requests are processed efficiently and fight to restore funding of public services to at least pre-recession levels. States including California, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Washington have already adopted some of these goals.

2. Establish new industrywide standards with wage boards

Policymakers should bring together workers, businesses, and the government by establishing wage boards—bodies that set minimum working standards for specific industries and occupations. Wage boards could set pay levels above state or local minimum wage floors and provide pay differentials for workers with additional skills or experience. In addition to improving standards, these boards would help build worker power by providing an opportunity for unions to organize workers to provide testimony. For workers covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), boards could help model a kind of industrywide bargaining that would provide far greater coverage than the typical enterprise-level bargaining. For workers excluded from the NLRA, wage boards could more directly encourage collective bargaining. More than three-quarters of registered voters supported the creation on wage boards, according to a January 2018 poll. While some states, including California, New York, and New Jersey, currently allow officials to convene similar bodies, other states would require new legislation.

3. Harness the power of government spending

State and local governments fund millions of jobs through spending on contracts, grants, loans, tax breaks, and economic development subsidies. This spending funds everything from construction of roads and bridges, to in-home care for aging residents and those with disabilities, to the ongoing maintenance of public buildings. Policymakers should use executive and legislative authorities to attach standards to government funds to ensure that taxpayers and workers receive the best possible results—not only raising standards but also helping workers have a voice on the job. Governments should, for example, help prevent labor disputes by requiringlabor peace agreements; give preference to the bids of employers who have a track record of upholding high standards and complying with the law; useprevailingwagelaws to ensure that all government spending upholds industrywide standards and does not undercut union wages; and track how development subsidies affect the government’s ability to provide essential goods and services.

4. Grant gig economy workers bargaining rights

Application-based technology firms frequently classify their workers as independent contractors, denying them collective bargaining rights and other legal protections afforded to employees. As a result, these workers often receive low pay, no benefits, and have little recourse to bargain for better standards. Domestic workers—who include housekeepers, nannies, and caregivers—are also often treated as independent contractors and similarly excluded. Cities and states can raise standards for these workers by strengthening misclassification laws, such as through the employer-employee relationship test recently established by the California Supreme Court; instituting minimum pay protections; creating worker-led platforms to deliver needed benefits; and providing a pathway for workers, companies, and the government to negotiate for industry-specific wages and benefits. For example, Washington state is debating legislation to require gig companies to contribute to worker-administered portable benefits funds, and the city of Seattle has passed a policy to set industrywide standards for domestic workers that combine many of these elements.

5. Promote high-quality training partnerships

Representatives of workers and businesses should play a central role in career and technical education programs to ensure that these programs adequately prepare workers for in-state jobs; focus on the areas in which training is most needed; and lead to high-quality jobs. Policymakers can do so by instituting training requirements for government services such as home care; promoting high-quality, high-wage apprenticeship programs; increasing the share of labor representation on state and local workforce development boards; and directing training and education funds to labor-management training partnerships. For example, Washington state partners with a union and private employers to provide required training to homecare workers. The training, which coincided with pay increases, helped professionalize the workforce and improve the quality of care. Worker organizations would benefit from having a more formalized role in workforce training and greater access to workers, which would help them to potentially recruit new members.

6. Empower unions to improve workplace benefits

State and local governments can ensure that government programs reach the workers who need them and help unions and other worker organizations build relationships with workers by involving worker organizations in the provision of benefits. To improve benefit provision, for example, worker organizations can help workers navigate the unemployment insurance system and various training programs; oversee state-run retirement benefit programs; and work with companies to design more effective workers’ compensation systems. For example, states including New York, Minnesota, and California allow unions and firms to bargain over alternative dispute resolution procedures for workers’ compensation.

7. Lower barriers to joining worker organizations

State and local governments have significant power to remove barriers that prevent many private sector workers from forming and sustaining strong unions and worker organizations. Policymakers should allow workers who are not covered by the NLRA to unionize and bargain collectively, as California has done for agricultural workers. In workplaces where unions are not present, state and local governments can enable workers to contribute voluntarily to nonunion worker organizations through payroll deductions, as New York City has done for fast food workers.

8. Repeal right-to-work laws

So-called right-to-work laws weaken workers’ ability to bargain for decent wages and benefits by allowing some workers to receive a free ride and receive the advantages of a union contract—such as higher wages and benefits and protection against arbitrary discipline—without paying any of the fees associated with negotiating on these matters. Research shows that workers in right-to-work states have lower wages and that these laws have no impact on job growth, contradicting claims advanced by right-to-work proponents. State policymakers should repeal existing right-to-work laws.

9. Partner with worker organizations to enforce the law

Evidence suggests that violations of workplace standards, such as minimum wage, overtime, and sick leave, are widespread. Policymakers can improve workplaces’ legal compliance by including community and worker organizations in enforcement efforts. Doing so will also provide an additional incentive for workers to interact with and join unions or other worker organizations. Cities such as San Francisco and Seattle are providing grants to organizations to inform workers of their rights and help them take action against lawbreaking companies.

10. Use government permits to support high-road firms

Certain industries—particularly those with many undercapitalized, transient businesses or those where there is a lack of competition—present challenges for workers attempting to organize or bargain collectively. Policymakers should leverage their power to license and permit businesses and construction projects to improve work standards. For example, introducing expedited building permits for construction projects that treat their workers fairly—as done in Austin, Texas—can encourage companies to act in workers’ best interests. Governments can also protect workers by increasing licensing requirements for industries with a history of poor worker treatment, as California has done with bond requirements in the car wash industry.

Conclusion

Despite economic growth over the last decade, too many Americans continue to struggle. Even as working families receive little benefit from the expanding economy, corporate profits are booming and the rich are becoming wealthier and more powerful.

Many newly elected progressive state officials have already committed themselves to addressing this problem and improving the lives of working and middle-class families. For example, Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) joined hundreds of Fight for $15 workers in Flint, Michigan, to protest for higher wages and a union; Wisconsin’s Gov.-elect Tony Evers (D) said that he will work to restore collective bargaining powers that teachers and public service workers lost under Republican Gov. Scott Walker; New Mexico’s Gov.-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has strongly opposed so-called right-to-work legislation; and in Illinois, Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker (D) promised to ensure that state spending creates good jobs and does not undercut union work.

State and local policymakers must follow their example and act now to strengthen workers’ collective bargaining rights and thereby help to restore balance within our economy and democracy.

Karla Walter is the director of Employment Policy at the Center for American Progress. David Madland is a senior fellow at the Center.

Authors’ note: The Center for American Progress and the Center for American Progress Action Fund provide detailed analyses of the above policies in the following reports:

]]>Under unchecked Republican control of the federal government, the culture of corruption in Washington has spun out of control. Americans are demanding change from both parties. A new generation of progressive candidates for Congress—from every part of the country—has staked out an important way to break the cycle of corruption: refusing corporate PAC contributions to their campaigns.

From the pharmaceutical industry to Big Oil and from Wall Street to K Street, big corporate interests have rigged the system with huge contributions to politicians. In return, they’ve gotten massive tax cuts at the expense of the middle class and government rules slanted in their favor, allowing them to gouge the public, pollute the air and water at will, and wreak havoc on our economy.

As a major first step in breaking the cycle of huge corporate contributions in exchange for legislation written to benefit those industries, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and End Citizens United have been urging all progressive candidates to take the pledge: reject corporate PAC money.

]]>How the DeVos Family Is Buying Political Sway Ahead of the Midterm Electionshttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/education/news/2018/10/29/172191/devos-family-buying-political-sway-ahead-midterm-elections/
Mon, 29 Oct 2018 09:00:13 +0000Ulrich Boser and Perpetual Baffourhttps://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/default/news/2018/10/26/172191//Despite its pledge not to make political contributions, the DeVos family continues to give millions to far-right issues and candidates.

]]>Over the past year, the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been quietly funding far-right Republican politicians. This CAP Action Fund analysis shows that the DeVos family has poured more than $2 million in donations into Republican coffers over the past 12 months—despite Secretary DeVos’ clear pledge not to make political contributions.

Even by the loose standards of U.S. campaign finance laws—and President Donald Trump’s blatant corruption—the donations by the family members of a Cabinet official have been brazen. In February 2018, Richard DeVos, Secretary DeVos’ father-in-law, gave $1 million to the Freedom Partners Action Fund—a political action fund that has long been associated with far-right causes. Over the past year, the DeVos family has also given $350,000 to the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund and another $400,000 to the Republican National Committee.

The DeVoses have also donated to specific candidates for federal and state office. (see Methodology) Wisconsin’s far-right firebrand, Gov. Scott Walker (R), for example, has received more than $635,000 over the past decade from the DeVos family—including $30,000 in 2018. Bill Schuette, Michigan’s Republican attorney general who is running for governor, received almost $40,000 over the past year.

But it seems that the state of Arizona is of particular interest to the DeVos family’s political agenda. Rep. Martha McSally (R), who is in a tight race for a U.S. Senate seat, landed $54,000 in contributions from the family this cycle—more than any other U.S. Senate candidate received from the DeVoses. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has likewise received more in campaign contributions from the DeVos family than any gubernatorial candidate across the country this election cycle, raking in $50,500 in donations.

Some of the DeVos family’s political contributions have largely flown under the national radar. Rep. Mike Bishop (R), whose race for a Michigan congressional seat has received little national attention, received almost $100,000 from the DeVos clan, with more than a quarter of the money landing over the past 12 months.

The DeVos family’s donations—to high-profile candidates and smaller races alike—have important political implications. For one, the DeVoses support policy positions that are light-years away from those held by the majority of Americans. The family has made clear, for instance, that it aims to privatize everything from public schools to the nation’s military. DeVos’ brother Erik Prince, the founder of the private security firm Blackwater, recently called for the U.S. military to put a “viceroy” in charge of the troops in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, the DeVoses’ political donations could explain why so many Republicans continue to support Trump’s secretary of education, despite deep public opposition to her policies.

Gov. Ducey, for instance, recently announced his support for Proposition 305, which would divert funding for public schools to support an expansion of the state’s private school voucher program. For years, Secretary DeVos has pursued similar efforts in the Department of Education’s annual budget request.

In a town hall last year, McSally awkwardly dodged questions from constituents on whether she supports Secretary DeVos. When asked about DeVos directly, McSally immediately pivoted to discussing education more broadly: “I’ve realized, and I grew up with values, that education is the key to your future,” she demurred.

After a strongly worded follow-up from another educator, who said, “You are not answering our questions,” McSally digressed once again. “You may not like my answers,” McSally began, but she was unable to finish her statement as a dissatisfied audience drowned her out.

McSally has taken in tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from the DeVos family. This analysis suggests why she and many other Republican candidates have chosen to ignore the widespread opposition to Secretary DeVos’ policies. In many ways, it appears that the DeVos family and other moneyed individuals with far-right views are simply paying for political support.

As the authors noted in a previous report, most of the giving from the DeVos family is fairly recent, although the analysis traced DeVos family political contributions from as far back as 1980.

The authors tallied the total direct contributions of the DeVos family to individual politicians, as well as to political action committees. The bulk of the money comes from Dick DeVos, his siblings, their spouses, and his parents. Many of these relatives bundle their giving, making contributions on the same date and often in the same amount.

While this analysis found significant contributions, it might actually underestimate the total amount of the family’s political giving. Under questioning from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) during a congressional hearing, DeVos admitted it was “possible” that she and her family have given as much as $200 million to Republican candidates.

A number of media outlets and researchers have described the hundreds of millions of dollars the DeVos family has poured into right-wing causes for many years. A few have even noted the family’s pattern of giving during the midterms and throughout Secretary DeVos’ confirmation hearing. Yet few have revealed a complete and up-to-date tally of her family’s financial largesse.

DeVos is brazenly buying political influence

As noted in the authors’ earlier report, DeVos has made it clear that her extensive campaign donations are intended to sway policymakers to do her bidding. She once wrote, “I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment.”

President Trump holds similar views on campaign contributions and has even bragged about the political pull of his giving: “I’ve given to everybody because that was my job,” Trump crowed at a rally last January. “I gotta give it to them, because when I want something I get it. When I call, they kiss my ass.”

DeVos and her family have taken this pay-for-play approach before. Secretary DeVos has long used her dollars to advocate for far-right causes, giving to groups that aim to privatize America’s jails, as well as to anti-climate change organizations. Erik Prince gave $250,000 to Trump’s presidential campaign, and according to news reports, Blackwater once paid more than $1 million in bribes to Iraqi officials. A spokeperson for the company, which has changed its name multiple times, said that the report was “baseless.”

In education circles, DeVos and her family have been particularly forceful about their political giving. For example, as an apparent reward for passing a no-accountability charter school law in her home state of Michigan in 2016, the DeVos family gave state Republicans $1.45 million over a seven-week period—or an average of $25,000 per day. In response, the Detroit Free Press’ editorial page editor described the lobbying effort as a “filthy, moneyed kiss.”

The DeVos family’s donations throughout the 2018 midterm cycle are yet another example of such “moneyed kiss[es].” This analysis found that Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) has received $184,000 in donations from the DeVos family over the past few decades, including $27,000 this election cycle. Rep. Fred Upton, another Republican congressman from DeVos’ home state who is running in the midterms, received $27,000 this cycle. John James, also a Michigan candidate, received $48,000 from the DeVos family in his current bid for a U.S. Senate seat.

Other Republican candidates receiving money leading up to the November elections include Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who landed $16,000 from the DeVos family this year, as well as Leah Vukmir of Wisconsin, who collected $27,000.

The midterm elections in one week will determine whether or not DeVos will get what she wants from politicians as a condition of her family’s financial backing. But voters may instead decide to hold Republicans accountable for fostering a culture of rampant corruption and end their far-right attacks on American institutions.

Ulrich Boser is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Perpetual Baffour is a former research associate for Education Policy at the Center.

Methodology

The authors used Federal Election Commission (FEC) data from 1980 through July 2018 and tallied the total direct contributions of Betsy DeVos and her family to Republican political candidates running for Congress. The authors also looked at governors’ races as well as donations to political action committees. The authors relied on the National Institute on Money in Politics’ database for contributions to gubernatorial candidates.

In addition, a handful of donations occurred too recently to be included in the bulk data released by the FEC. In such cases, the authors used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to update their analysis with the most recent information. The following family members made donations that appear in the tally: Rensselaer Broekhuizen, Cassandra DeVos, Cheri DeVos VanderWeide, Dalton DeVos, Dan DeVos, Douglas DeVos, Helen DeVos, Maria DeVos, Pamella Roland DeVos, Richard DeVos Jr., Richard DeVos Sr., Suzanne DeVos, Sydney DeVos, and Elsa Prince-Broekhuizen.

]]>As Arizona Rep. Martha McSally (R) runs for Senate in her state, she is doing little to promote education. In debates and interviews, she has called for either severely reducing—or totally eliminating—the federal government’s role in K-12 education.

However, cutting federal support for education would have a devastating impact on Arizona schools. According to a CAP Action Fund analysis, Rep. McSally’s approach could eliminate the jobs of more than 14,000 teachers in the state. Without federal support, low-income schools in Arizona would lose as much as $330 million, and the state could lose up to $700 million in total education dollars.

Congressional Republicans’ position on the federal role in education

Rep. McSally’s exact position on the federal government’s role in public K-12 education is somewhat unclear. During a 2012 congressional debate, for instance, she argued that she wanted minimal federal involvement in education, according to the Arizona Daily Star. In an interview with KGUN-9, Rep. McSally said that she could not think of one reason to federally fund K-12 education.

In 2014, Rep. McSally took a slightly more moderate stance. While she stated that she was in favor of federal education funding, she wanted to “reduce federal red tape,” according to the Arizona Daily Star. In 2015, however, Rep. McSally put out a press release during the debate over the Every Student Succeeds Act, stating that federal legislation should “reform our current broken system by reducing the federal government’s footprint and restoring local control for determining education.”

This year, there has been no mention of K-12 education issues on her campaign website, even though it is a top concern for voters in the state.

Whatever Rep. McSally’s specific position, congressional Republicans have long argued that there should be no federal role in education, and many on the far-right have argued for eliminating or drastically cutting federal education funding for public K-12 schools.

President Donald Trump, for instance, has long called for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. “We want to bring education local so we’re going to be cutting the Department of Education big league because we’re running our education from Washington D.C.,” the president told Circa in 2016, adding, “which is ridiculous, instead of running it out of Miami or running it out of the different place that we have so many people.” In the same interview, he went on to say that he planned to cut the department “down to shreds.”

In 2016, CAP Action examined what it would mean if policymakers such as Rep. McSally and President Trump were to cut the Department of Education and all associated funding. The impact on Arizona schools alone would be devastating:

14,379 teachers would lose their jobs.

$330 million would be lost in grants for low-income schools.

$214 million would be lost in grants for special education students.

$165 million would be lost in grants for military, Native American, and other federally connected students.

$14 million would be lost in grants for English language learners and other immigrant students.

$3 million would be lost in grants for rural schools.

All told, Arizona would lose more than $700 million in funding for schools.

This loss would come at a time when the state’s schools and teachers are struggling. Teacher pay in Arizona has dropped 10 percent since 1999, after adjusting for inflation. Arizona also trails the rest of the United States in education funding, spending more than $3,000 less than the national average.

As noted in the 2016 CAP Action analysis, supporting and protecting the country’s students—with a keen focus on those most at risk—should be a priority of every policymaker. Any plan to sacrifice resources for Arizona’s students, particularly those who are most vulnerable, in order to pay for tax cuts that would unduly benefit the country’s top earners is as shortsighted as it is callous.

Rep. McSally should clearly state her support for protecting the country’s students—especially those who are most at risk—something for which federal education funding has historically been prioritized. Otherwise, she will be failing the people whom she has promised to represent.

Will Ragland is the managing director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund War Room. Ulrich Boser is a senior fellow at the Action Fund.

Methodology

For the 2016 analysis, the CAP Action research team reported fiscal year 2016 spending data and FY 2017 congressional justifications from the Department of Education to demonstrate individual state and national funding implications of President Trump’s proposal to eliminate the agency.

To calculate the number of Arizona teachers who could potentially lose their jobs if the Department of Education were eliminated, the team added the state’s 2014-15 average teacher salary from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to the representative statistic of costs associated with Arizona’s education and health services occupations from the U.S. Department of Labor. The team then divided the total dollar amount that Arizona receives for elementary and secondary education from the Department of Education by the above sum.

To calculate the number of students that this proposal would affect, the team multiplied the most recent data on Arizona pupil-to-teacher ratios from the NCES, for the 2012-13 school year, by the calculated number of teachers affected.

]]>In recent years, gun violence in Florida has reached a nearly two-decade high. In addition to the devastating mass shootings at Pulse nightclub, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Fort Lauderdale airport, and a Jacksonville video game tournament, gun violence affects communities across the state every day. In fact, from 1999 through 2016, the overall rate of gun-related deaths in Florida—including homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings—has increased 20 percent.

This increase is largely driven by a significant rise in gun-related murders in Florida. Prior to 2006, Florida’s gun murder rate was below the national rate; however, since 2006, the gun murder rate in the state has risen dramatically. In 2016, the most recent year for which data are available, the gun murder rate in Florida was 8 percent higher than the national rate. At the same time, from 1999 through 2016, the nongun murder rate in Florida declined 45 percent. This increase in gun murders in Florida was not part of a national trend. After 2006, the national gun murder rates slightly declined—until a recent spike in 2016—indicating that the dramatic rise in Florida’s gun homicides was caused by something that is unique to the state.*

It is often difficult to ascertain the precise cause of an increase in a particular category of violent crime. However, in the case of Florida and its skyrocketing gun murder rate, researchers have been able to identify a clear culprit: the 2005 enactment of an expansive self-defense law commonly referred to as “stand your ground.”

Stand your ground laws increase homicide rates in Florida

The new law—which was the first of its kind in the nation—dramatically expanded the conventional approach to self-defense, empowering individuals to use lethal force even when safe retreat from the situation is possible or when lesser, nonlethal force would suffice. Most notably, stand your ground eliminated an individual’s duty to retreat from a dangerous situation before resorting to lethal force; removed any legal incentive for an individual to try to de-escalate or escape an encounter; and shifted lethal force from a last resort option to a first move. The law went even further by explicitly immunizing people who invoke it from criminal prosecution and civil liability—in many cases, preventing individuals who killed another person and claimed self-defense from even being arrested or charged with a crime.

A team of researchers examined the homicide rate in Florida before and after stand your ground and, in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the enactment of this law was associated with a dramatic increase in both overall homicides and gun-related homicides in the state. After controlling for other factors and comparing the homicide rates with trends in other states, the researchers determined that the monthly gun murder rate in the state increased 31.6 percent after the law was enacted, while the monthly overall murder rate increased 24.4 percent.

Using this research, CAP Action calculated the number of individuals murdered with a gun in Florida who would not have been killed in this manner had stand your ground never been enacted and had previous trends continued. The analysis finds that, since 2006, the lives of approximately 4,200 individuals in Florida who were murdered with a gun may have been saved had this law not been enacted and that earlier trend continued.**

Stand your ground convictions reveal racial bias

Not only has Florida’s stand your ground law increased the state’s gun-related murders, but it has also been proven to have a racially disparate impact as applied. Researchers analyzed stand your ground defenses used in Florida from 2005 through 2013 and found these defenses were far more likely to be successful if the victim was black, Hispanic, or another race or ethnicity other than white. Specifically, the researchers found that defendants in Florida using the stand your ground defense were two times more likely to be convicted if the victim was white, concluding that “SYG legislation in Florida has a quantifiable racial bias that reveals a leniency in convictions if the victim is non-White, which provides evidence towards unequal treatment under the law.”

These findings are consistent with previous research on the impact of stand your ground laws indicating that in states that have enacted these laws, 35.9 percent of shootings of black victims by white perpetrators were deemed justified, while only 3.4 percent of cases with black perpetrators and white victims had the same result.

The contentious debate continues

Even in the face of this mounting evidence that stand your ground laws are harmful, Florida’s Republican leadership in the state Legislature doubled down on the law in 2017, amending it to be even more extreme. This new element makes it even more difficult to mount a prosecution when an individual seeks immunity under the stand your ground law; it requires prosecutors to prove that use of lethal force was unlawful by clear and convincing evidence at the pretrial stage, rather than requiring a defendant to prove the elements of this defense.

Since its enactment, stand your ground has continued to be a controversial topic in Florida. Beginning with the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012, each new high-profile case in which stand your ground is invoked reignites the debate. Most recently, the July 2018 shooting death of Markeis McGlockton in Clearwater and the initial refusal of police to arrest the perpetrator, Michael Drejka, led to another round of public debate about the advisability of this law.

This debate rages on in Florida’s gubernatorial race, as the current candidates present a stark contrast on the issue. Republican nominee and former Rep. Ron DeSantis (R) has repeatedly expressed his support for the state’s stand your ground law, stating that repealing the law “would impose a duty to retreat upon law-abiding Floridians, which would tip the scales in favor of criminals.” In contrast, Democratic nominee and current Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum has expressed substantial concern about the impact of stand your ground on safety in Florida, stating that the law “has created a state of emergency in Florida” and that if elected governor, he would issue an executive order suspending the law.

Conclusion

As the first state in the nation to enact an expansive stand your ground self-defense law, Florida set a trend in state legislatures that has resulted in nearly half of all states enacting a similar law. But with more than a decade of data now available to assess the impact of this law in the state, Floridians have ample information to determine whether this law has proven beneficial to the safety of all communities statewide, or whether it is a failed experiment in need of immediate repeal.

Chelsea Parsons is the vice president of Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Eugenio Weigend is the associate director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center.

*Authors’ note: These data are based on a CAP Action analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Fatal Injury Reports, National, Regional and State, 1981 – 2016,” available at https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html (last accessed September 2018). This analysis was based on crude rates. However, similar trends and results are observed when using age-adjusted rates.

**Authors’ note: This projection is based on a CAP Action analysis of data from the CDC, “Fatal Injury Reports, National, Regional and State, 1981 – 2016.” For this analysis, the authors used data on Florida’s annual gun homicides from 1981 to 2005 to estimate trends and calculate projected gun homicides in Florida from 2006 to 2016 had the previous 1981 to 2005 trend continued. They then compared those estimated figures with the real annual number of homicides in Florida from 2006 to 2016. These data come from two CDC data sets: one that includes homicide data in Florida from 1981 to 1998 and the second that includes homicide data in Florida from 1999 to 2016. The authors acknowledge that the CDC suggests using caution when merging these two data sets, as the categories of causes of death are slightly different. However, studies have shown that changes in the categorization of suicide and homicides across the two data sets do not alter trends and that the two data sets are comparable for analyzing homicides. See Robert N. Anderson and others, “Comparability of Cause of Death Between ICD-9 and ICD-10: Preliminary Estimates” (Washington: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001), available at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49_02.pdf.

]]>After President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, his administration and the Republican-majority Congress could have used their unified control of the federal government to act on Trump’s campaign promise to allocate $1 trillion for rebuilding the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure. Instead, during one of the several iterations of Trump’s Infrastructure Week, the Trump administration rolled out a blueprint that proposed to actually cut federal infrastructure funding while encouraging the privatization of critical public assets and the expansion of highway tolls. Congressional Democrats rejected the proposal to privatize public assets and cut to federal infrastructure spending. At the same time, Republicans in Congress chose to focus on undoing worker and consumer protections, including many put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. Their primary legislative accomplishment was, of course, a tax bill that will increase the deficit by $2 trillion over the next decade and overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Despite the obvious economic benefits and political popularity of increased infrastructure spending, the Trump administration has abandoned its efforts to make good on the president’s campaign promise. While the wealthy enjoy an unearned tax cut, the rest of America is stuck with thousands of miles of worsening roads and thousands of structurally deficient bridges.

New analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund provides detailed information on the extent to which the condition of roads and bridges has worsened across over two dozen metro areas. (see Table 1) In many regions, there are hundreds of structurally deficient bridges that millions of vehicles cross daily and thousands of miles of roads and highways in need of repair.

It goes without saying that deteriorating infrastructure is a safety and quality-of-life issue for virtually every American. The Trump administration’s refusal to invest in fixing substandard roads and bridges also can limit the potential of the economy by preventing job creation. Yet, the Trump administration chose to pursue reckless tax cuts and neglected the need and opportunity to invest in infrastructure.

Table 2 emphasizes the recklessness of pursuing tax cuts for the wealthy over investing in small infrastructure. It compares the top 1 percent’s 2019 tax cuts in each metro area’s respective state with the estimated costs required to resurface each lane mile of road in need of repair within that metro area. In several cases, the 2019 tax cut giveaway to the state’s wealthy exceeds the amount it would take to rehabilitate all the metro area’s substandard roads and highways—improvements that could last the better part of a decade or longer.

These maps present the cases of five selected metro areas across the country—Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Syracuse, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Cedar Rapids—and show the precise locations of structurally deficient bridges and roads in need of repair. It is abundantly clear that no road, bridge, or location within a metro area or anywhere across the country is spared from the elected officials’ decisions to underinvest in the nation’s transportation networks.

After several failed attempts to take health care away from millions of Americans, President Trump and his congressional allies shifted their efforts to a cause that unites the congressional Republican majority: irresponsible tax cuts. Legitimate analyses reached the conclusion that the tax bill would increase the deficit by $2 trillion over the next decade and overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Both Trump and his congressional allies prioritized these unnecessary tax cuts over essential investments to rebuild roads and bridges across the country; as a result, the nation’s infrastructure continues to deteriorate.

Andrew Schwartz is a policy analyst of Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Jesse Lee is the vice president for Communications at the Action Fund.